"ClipWrap" m2t to Quicktime HDV wrapper NOW AVAILABLE!
 

The missing link for reliable 720p24 FCP workflows is NOW AVAILABLE!

ORIGINAL POST from August 12 2008:
I'm very pleased to finally announce that Divergent Media's latest app "ClipWrap" is now available for download. I can tell you that it works perfectly with every 720p24 m2t clip I've thrown at it and I'll be testing all the other frame rates later this week.

I've been biting my tongue on this since NAB but now that DM has officially announced ClipWrap I'd like to fill you all in on this awesome little product that I'm sure all of the FCP users will be adding to the arsenal.

First a little background:
I usually go to NAB each year with a short list of mini-missions. Most of them involve researching future purchases but these past two years one of my missions was to find someone who would listen (be it from Apple or otherwise) and help overcome the simple hurdle of encapsulating HDV m2t FILES into quicktime. I knew it was possible since Apple can do it during digizitation and Focus Enhancements can do it within their DR-HD100. Last year reps from Focus listened attentively to my idea but it was clear that they put so much effort into figuring out how to wrap QT within the DR-HD100 software that they weren't interested in taking the task on for Mac OS X. The FCP developers I've met and had conversations with have never seemed to understand exactly why we needed this because they believed their digitizer worked just fine.

I had been following Divergent Media's development of Scopebox 2 very closely and I knew that since they had finally figured out how to wrap a m2t stream into QT HDV that they probably had the know-how to wrap an existing m2t file into QT HDV.
I went over to their booth and found the lead developer Mike Woodworth. I had already been in contact with Mike on the scopebox board but it is so much better to make your case face-to-face on the showroom floor. Mike told me that through the development of Scopebox 2 he had figured out how Apple handles HDV in Quicktime and that it would probably be very easy to create the app I was looking for.
I told Mike my three major requirements for my dream "m2t to QT wrapper" app. (in order of importance.)

1. Batch encapsulation (wrapping) of m2t files into Quicktime HDV clips
2. Read and carry over the source timecode into the Quicktime HDV clips
3. A capability to "unwrap" Quicktime HDV back into m2t.

Mike told me right away that the first two would be easy to do but the third requirement would be very tricky. (As of the current version ClipWrap does not "unwrap".)

So after a 20 minute conversation about it Mike said he would get working on it within a week.

3 months later Mike had the first beta ready for me to test! I can't quite put into words how excited I was the first time I ran a few old 720p24 m2t files I had captured back in 2005 from a first generation HD100 and I saw new Quicktimes WITH SOURCE TIMECODE come out the other end! Cudos to Mike Woodworth and his team for taking on this task and creating an elegantly simple and solid application.

So what's the difference between ClipWrap and all the other apps I've used (Mpeg Streamclip, Lumiére HD or HDVxDV)?
Those other apps all have batch TRANSCODING capabilities but they lack the ability to ENCAPSULATE or "wrap" one media type into another. For example Mpeg Streamclip can read any m2t files that you may have captured (via CapDVHS, HDVxDV, Firestore, Premiere, etc.) and then transcode it into any other codec within Quicktime. This means you have to choose a suitable codec (ideally a 'near-lossless' one like ProRes422 or AIC) and then wait for your computer to encode each file into new and bigger QT files. The speed of the encoding is dependent on the speed of your processor(s). The other vital bit of information lost with all of these apps is timecode.

The Elegant Alternative:
When you use ClipWrap to simply encapsulate or "wrap" the m2t files you are not transcoding any video. The original mpeg2 of the original camera acquired clip remains perfectly intact in its original form but now it is wrapped in quicktime and can be used for immediate native HDV editing in Final Cut Pro (5.1.2 and later for 720p24.) NO GENERATION LOSS.

The greatest thing about the simplicity of just wrapping is that IT IS FAST! The file sizes are the same (about 1% larger because the audio in uncompressed during the encapsulation process) and you are only waiting as long as it would take for your hard drive to duplicate the file. Therefore the faster your hard drives the faster the process. Speedy processors will also help but wrapping is no where near as taxing on the processor as encoding.

What is the new workflow? How will the app benefit me?
Tape based workflow:
As we all know FCP does not support direct import of m2t files and it is very picky when it captures a m2t stream from tape. If it encounters any small data problems in the mpeg2 stream it simply halts digitizing and picks up a few seconds later. This can be very frustrating for those who can capture their clips fine from the tape with Premiere (into m2t) or apps like DVHSCap or HDVxDV but then have to reencode into an intermediate codec. Now you can simply convert those captured m2t files into Quicktime HDV and start editing with FCP in native HDV.

Hard drive or Flash media based workflow:
Focus Enhancements and JVC have gone to great lengths to include QT HDV encapsulation in the DR-HD100 product. This works flawlessly now in all 720p formats but what if you have used the FS-4 or other hard drive capture device to capture m2t? What if you are not sure what NLE will be used in post and you want to keep your options open?
I shot a short film a month ago and the producer assured me it was to be posted in Premiere. We recorded to the DR-HD100 in m2t but then two weeks ago the producer decided to use an editor with FCP. I was able to use ClipWrap to easily wrap those m2ts into quicktime and they were able to start cutting immediately.

What other features does ClipWrap currently have?
ClipWrap currently does exactly what it was designed for (batch wraps m2t to QT HDV) but Mike has managed to add a great feature I'm sure the DR-HD100 or FS-4 owners will appreciate. ClipWrap will detect long clips that were split to 4GB chunks because of FAT-32 format of DTE drives and then stitch the clip back together into one big Quicktime. Of course you need to write to a mac formatted drive to handle file sizes larger than 4GB.

A million thanks, Tim! And to Divergent Media!

The end of the dreaded (and all too frequent) "mid-clip break"!

I guess we'll find out in the next few days where to download it from and how much.

Excellent Tim...You continue to make a difference.

This is something that should have been done years ago. I'm glad you were finally able to get through to somebody.

I have been researching the nNovia HD recorders and they were stating that they had software that they would be bundling with the recorders that did this very same thing.

Has anyone tried their product? Is it shipping.

This one sounds very cool. Hope it ships soon.

Daniel Weber

Can't wait!

I've never heard of that and can't find any reference to it on their website. Their website states that FCP6 supports m2t, which is a half-truth. Log & Transfer in FCP6 does work with m2t generated by some cameras but currently not 720p HDV.

I was closed to buy a nNovia because of this feature :

"QuickHDV – a MAC desktop utility that converts HDV files formatted as .m2t files to .mov files for seamless integration into Final Cut Pro. The conversion occurs when the files are dragged and dropped from the nNovia HDD to the MAC for editing. It is very fast and adds minimal time to the standard file transfer process. (May 19 Release)"

You can find this information there :
http://www.nnovia.com/news.php?id=12

But i've sent them a mail once week ago to verify this (and to know if the timelapse fonction was also working from the hdv stream) but never had any respons. Peharps are they on holidays... ?

And thanks a lot for trying to find someone who can do this new application !

I just talked to someone at nNovia today. She said that the software is in Beta and is available to clients. It started shipping yesterday. They have tested the unit with a JVC HD110 and claim that it would work with 720p24 and 720p30. I asked how long I would have to evaluate the unit and she said 30 days.

They also have a unit coming out that will record DVCPro HD.

Their base unit is the QC HD model with runs for $1069 with a 120 gig HD. They say that to have start and stop functions you need to have a tape in the camera. They have a V mount that you can run the camera and the recorder off of at the same time. The kit with this mount and the drive runs for $1225. Prices go up at the end of the month.

Daniel Weber

While you are beta testing ...
 

Hi Tim.

Are you allowed to comment (in this pre-release period) on whether ClipWrap has a function similar to MPEG Streamclip's "Fix Timecode Breaks"?

On occasion, I've received .m2t files (captured by another with DVHSCap) which contain a number of clips (and therefore timecode breaks) in the one .m2t file. Not a problem for MPEG Streamclip (but only if you wanted to transcode, of course).

So it might prove a very popular function if it's included with ClipWrap.

Fix TC breaks?
 

Since I wrote ClipWrap, I certainly can comment :)

I'm not familiar with how MpegStreamClip handles breaks, does it split them into separate files? We don't currently do that - it will just roll the whole m2t into a single mov file with the first clips TC.

Once I get a better idea of exactly what you want, I can let you know how easy it will be to add.

Mike Woodworth

Have I mentioned lately how much I LOVE this forum?

Thanks for chiming in Mike. Looking forward to seeing how this all pans out...

This program will very much help me as for I have a TON of m2t files that need to be MOV, Is there any projected date as to when this might come out?

I didn't write the original question, but I think I know what he is referring to. Sometimes when you open an .M2T file in MPEG Streamclip it will say that there are timecode breaks and that they need to be fixed. This takes place before the transcoding.

Any ideas on what your product will cost?

Thanks,

Daniel Weber

Great to have you aboard, Mike!

To explain:
Say you have a clip (.m2t) captured on DVHSCap which has 5 different takes on it (and therefore 5 different "timecode breaks" for every time you stopped recording). Even though your actual timecode on the tape is continuous, both FCP and MPEG Streamclip register a "timecode break" at each point you stopped recording - presumably due to some sort of disturbance to the GOP structure at each of these points.

Now, if you create a QuickTime of the .m2t file using MPEG Streamclip WITHOUT fixing the "timecode breaks", the result is a QuickTime movie which plays only the first clip and then freezes the image at the first break and you don't get the next four clips at all. Just one very long freeze frame.

If you DO fix the timecode breaks at the beginning with MPEG Streamclip and then create the QuickTime, you get one long clip containing all five takes correctly playing one after the other.

So, rolling the whole .m2t (which contains all 5 takes) into a single .mov file, as you currently are, is absolutely perfect!

As I don't know the inner mysteries of .m2t to .mov migration, I was just concerned that simply wrapping the .m2t in a QuickTime wrapper might require some sort of function applied to it (in the same vein as "Fix Timecode Breaks" needs to be applied with MPEG Streamclip) so that the resultant .mov doesn't freeze up part of the way through when you play it in FCP.

Believe me, the first thing I will test when I buy ClipWrap will be a single .m2t file containing multiple takes!

I'm sure you've already got it solved, but I just thought I would check.

And believe me, your popularity rating with the FCP users on this board is absolutely sky-high!

Thanks again!

The .m2t to .mov issue is just about the only thing keeping me from spending my hard earned money on a hard drive recorder for my HD200U as I'm a "dyed in the wool" FCP user who really wants to have timecode come over intact.

We haven't specifically tested this situation. Do you have one of these problem clips? If you contact me offlist (mike@divergentmedia.com) I'll give you details on how to upload the files to our ftp server. We have a fairly large library of various clips we are testing against, but I'd love to add something like this to the test suite so we can be sure it works.

Thanks,
mike

We haven't finalized on a price quite yet, but I promise we'll be announcing everything very soon. We're finishing up the store and squashing a few bugs, we hope to push this out very soon.

Also, I don't know if everyone found it by way of the blog post on divergentmedia.com, but we've posted a screen cast that shows colin, our QA guy, batching some files. You can find it directly on youtube here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLQjXKKsSiM

Thanks,
mike

Mike, Hopefully not too expensive so everybody can start using a good conversion tool for the M2T files?

Great news.
I'm assuming (hoping!) that although there is no direct mention here, 720p25 will be covered here too?

David, we have tested with every flavor of 720p JVC. They are all supported.

-mike

Will the files that ClipWrap creates be compatible on both the Mac and Windows NLEs?

For those who have been following this thread, I sent one of the aforementioned clips to Mike and it only took them about 60 minutes to work out how to handle it and add the new feature to ClipWrap. So that's great news!

I think this feature will probably be handiest for nature videographers and event videographers where, at times, "every frame counts". They can simply rewind a few seconds before the clip they actually want, then capture (with DVHSCap or HDVxDV) the last few seconds of the previous clip plus ALL of the new clip. And the new QuickTime generated by ClipWrap now won't freeze when it reaches the "timecode break" at the point where the new footage begins. (I hope that makes sense.) Nice!

m2t files are already directly compatible with most Windows-based NLEs so the idea here is to make those same m2t files just as usable in FCP on Mac by wrapping them into Quicktime.

Does this program only work with 720p files? I have some old 1080i .m2t files from my Sony HC1 that I captured on my PC a few years back and I'm hoping that this will work for me too.

Chris, ClipWrap is not limited to just 720p. We are testing with 1080 files from Canon and Sony.

m2t is a funny standard, with many permutations of how things may be handled in the files, but we are striving to support nearly all HDV camera formats. Granted we don't have access to all of these cameras, so a few of the more obscure files may not be addressed in the initial release - but the plan is to push releases often as we add support for new cameras.

-mike

Excellent. Thanks Mike.

Wow - I need ClipWrap, like yesterday!
 

I'll gladly pay for the latest beta! Because I've just figured out (today) how to save myself about 20 weeks of work. I've got an old feature project (120 minutes long) where I'd batch converted the m2ts into AIC QuickTimes with HDVxDV (with out-of-synch audio). I'd recently "re-captured" the 35 tapes natively with FCP, filled with mid-clip breaks and shaving the beginning and ends off certain clips, etc. Then I was re-cutting from scratch, trying to find each clip (with no matching timecode to go by). Each clip was a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack and, after a week, I'd only re-cut about 6 1/2 minutes (before I got swamped again with corporate work). I was really in despair. Then I saw Tim's post in another thread about how the TC is only metadata and can be changed, which inspired me to pull out the FCP manual and study the TC section.

All of my AIC QuickTimes were given a timecode by HDVxDV, albeit the wrong timecode! (And MPEG Streamclip, of course, automatically gives each clip a TC starting at 00:00:00:00.) So I've just completed an experiment where I batch converted 5 m2t files with HDVxDV and stored them on a separate drive, imported them into FCP and cut them into a sequence. Then I selected each clip in the Browser and modified its TC to start at zero in each case (Modify>Timecode>Set to First Frame>change the Source TC to 00:00:00:00).

Then I batch converted the same 5 m2t files using MPEG Streamclip (usually not recommended by me because Streamclip gives repeat frames with 720p24 - but I was simply using Streamclip to simulate a batch conversion by ClipWrap with each clip starting at 00:00:00:00) onto a separate drive from the HDVxDV conversions.

Then I disconnected the HDVxDV drive and, when FCP asked me to reconnect, I guided it to the drive with the Streamclip conversions (which all had the same names as the original m2t files due to the batch conversion) and reconnected. Voila! The sequence played exactly the same footage. With everything where it should be!

So now I have one new request for Mike. And hopefully this feature will be very simple to add. Can we have the option, when ClipWrap adds the wrapper to the .m2t, to have the beginning of the clip start with 00:00:00:00 TC?

So you would have the option, when batch processing with ClipWrap, to have "First Frame Set To:" and then you can select either: "Original Timecode" or "Set to 00:00:00:00".

This feature would be very handy for those wishing to upgrade the quality of earlier projects where transcoding was used. (Hey, maybe I'm the only one!)

Originally I was just looking at using ClipWrap for future corporate work (so I can work in full native quality WITHOUT those darned mid-clip breaks). But a lightbulb has just turned on above my head regarding this other project and I'm desperate to get my hands on a copy. As I said, I'll gladly pay for the latest beta! Thanks.

David.

FCP doesn't relink based on TC or any other meta data such as tape name. (Avid had always done this BTW)
FCP simply relinks based on file name and counts the number of frames from the first frame of the file. It doesn't care about timecode.

If I were you I would avoid 00:00:00:00 timecode at all costs because it serves no purpose if you ever want to recapture from the original tapes.

Thanks, Tim. You've just saved me a lot of unnecessary work! I guess my test was unnecessarily elaborate.

And in that case, Mike, I withdraw my request to have the ClipWrap option of re-setting TC to 00:00:00:00. (But still urgently requiring ClipWrap itself!)

I just wanted to post in this thread to let everyone know we are now shipping ClipWrap.

It is available at ClipWrap for $49.95. You can download a trial which will convert the first minute of each clip, and purchase an unlock key from our online store if you're happy.

If anyone has any questions of feedback they can email me directly at mike [at] divergentmedia [dot ] com.

mike

Thank you Mike.

I've changed the title of the thread to reflect that ClipWrap is now available.

Here's the press release with the neatly described features. (I like the part where it says "ClipWrap speaks m2t.")

I tried the demo and it works as advertised. Very quick and snappy on my Macbook Pro.

Daniel Weber

I tried it and it doesnt work on my i-mac system, it is just like the sony plug in for final cut studio 2. I can see all the files on the CF drive but they dont appear in the import window.

I am on osx 10.5.4 and all the material was shot 1080i 50i

When I try to drag and drop the m2t files they will not go from the CF folder into the clipwrap window

Hi Gary.

I've also got an iMac running OS 10.5.4 and I was able to load a batch of files (720p24) into ClipWrap, using drag and drop.

But mine were from an external hard drive. Maybe try copying them from your CF drive onto a hard drive first and then see if you have better luck. (Or select Command O on ClipWrap and try loading them from the CF drive that way?)

Thanks for your suggestions David, I tried copying to the desktop and they still will not work, I also tried opening with cmd O and the files will not go over that way either.

When I drag an m2t file into the clipwrap box it just bounces back to the original folder.

I am using a Z7 camera and as said have already had problems with the sony plug in not working with FCP, the files all work fine when imported into AVID media composer 3.0 which is also running on my macbook pro and i-mac systems.

I am running final cut studio 2 6.0.4

Well then, this sounds like a job for Mike!

My only other thought would be if you are using the trial mode. If so, I believe it will only convert clips of 60 seconds or less. If you do have trial mode, perhaps try capturing a few forty-five second clips (if you've got the camera with you!) and see if they'll load up.

First clip on the CF is bars and tone for 15 secs so I dont think the 1 min thing is the problem.
This must be an apple problem as I can drag the files from the CF to the desktop and they copy, but I cannot drag them into the clipwrap window or into the final cut log and transfer window.

Once the file is copied onto the desktop I still cant drop it into the clipwrap window.

BINGO just sussed what the problem is:

/Volumes/VIDEO/VIDEO/HVR/02_0058_2008-08-17_143150.M2T

The above file will not work

/Users/garynattrass/Desktop/02_0058_2008-08-17_143150.m2t

This one will.

I changed the .m2t to lower case!!!

Now why is my CF unit recording with upper case file ext's

WOW just got an e-mail from Mike to say that he has fixed the upper case problem already, now that is very impressive software development and has just about made the sony plug in for fcp obsolete for me.

Hi Mike/Tim...

Been having a lot of problems with 720p24 from an hd101e lately... You seem to have the solution to my problems :)

My questions:

1. Will clipwrap ever be able to handle scene breaks in a continuous m2t file to export as separate clips?

2. Will FCP read 720p24 files' TC as :00 to :23 OR :00 to :29?

3. Can any of you bother with providing the following information for me? For tape based footage, what is your suggested workflow now that clipwrap is available... (720p24) from which program to use for capture, down to to FCP's sequence/and other settings... (using FCP for editing)? I do have premiere available...

Warm Regards,

Nick Papadopoulos